Essential diagnostics services such as ultrasound have long been out of reach for millions of needy people in developing countries. The unavailability of ultrasound diagnostic services has contributed to higher maternal and infant mortalities in these areas. A shortage of trained and qualified sonographers, a lack of willingness of qualified sonographers to relocate to rural areas, a poor state of infrastructure, and a high cost of ultrasound equipment are some of the factors contributing to the lack of availability of ultrasound diagnostic services in certain areas.
More recently, the availability of more affordable ultrasound devices targeting new or non-traditional users, such as midwives, paramedics, general physicians, and the like, have partially helped overcome the above-mentioned challenges. Many of these new or non-traditional users, however, have been unable to use these ultrasound devices effectively to obtain ultrasound images of a desired quality.
Conventional ultrasound classroom training methods have high costs due to the expense of the equipment, experienced instructors, infrastructure and logistics, and availability of patients for volunteer scans. In many cases, the per user cost of instructor led classroom training may be cost prohibitive in view of the compensation and incentives typically offered for newly acquired skills of the end-users. Additionally and/or alternatively, training simulators may be used to teach users to perform ultrasound scans. The sensors and other electronic circuitry typically included in a probe and scanned object (e.g., mannequin), however, may be complicated and expensive. For example, training simulators typically include several sensors, such as electromagnetic sensors, RFID readers/tags, NFC readers/tags, QR readers/codes, and/or gyroscopes, among other things, and other complex electronic circuitry in the probe and/or scanned object. A typical training simulator having sensors and other electronic circuitry in the probe and scanned object components may have a price tag around $10,000, which may be cost prohibitive for many users.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present disclosure as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.